In Diameter networks, sessions are often established between policy and charging rules functions (PCRFs) and other nodes. For example, a PCRF may establish Sy sessions with an online charging system (OCS) to monitor policy counters, which govern subscriber spending limits with regard to one or more services. The PCRF may make policy decisions based on the status of the policy counters received from the OCS. In another example, on the Gx interface, a PCRF may send re-authorization request (RAR) messages to policy and charging enforcement functions (PCEF) to re-establish sessions with the PCEFs.
A PCRF reserves memory and other resources associated with each session on each interface that the PCRF supports. Sometimes, a session may become stale. For example, if a session is no longer active or used but a termination message has not been sent by the PCEF or received by the PCRF, the PCRF may not be aware of the termination. A session that is no longer active or used but has not been terminated may be referred to herein as a stale session or an inactive session. As the number of sessions managed by the PCRF increases, wasted resources due to stale sessions can degrade PCRF performance.
Accordingly, a need exists for methods, systems, and computer readable media for clearing Diameter session information.